BDA disabling BD-R/RE playback in new Blu-Ray standalones & firmwares to curb piracy!

basspig

basspig

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BDA disabling BD-R/RE playback in new Blu-Ray standalones & firmwares to curb piracy!

I saw this on a Google search about the topic. If the information is correct, then the industry is playing dirty to curb piracy at the expense of event videographers whose customers are asking for Blu-ray. In essense, all players made after Spring 2007 won't play burned discs. My player was made before that date and it works with all my burned discs, but I'm having difficulty finding any players in stores today that play my burned discs.
Now that I have an upcoming event in which the client has a 50" plasma and is asking for Blu-ray, I am in a connundrum about what to suggest. I don't want to charge them for the authoring and find that the brand of player they buy won't play the disc! I don't wish to be compatibility testing lab for my clients either. This situation is likely to become a serious mess for all HD videographers... Here's the thread on it:

The Blu-Ray Disc Association is permanently crippling BD-R playback in new players now. It is being done to curb piracy, at the expense of people who like to produce their own hidef discs (for weddings, sports events, backups, etc). They are apparently coming out with special AACS blanks, but they aren't available now and it is unknown how compatible they will be - and they could be very expensive.

Say goodbye to open formats like DVD-R/DVD+R if Blu-Ray wins the format war:

Quote:
Originally Posted by paidgeek, Sony Insider/Employee on AVSFORUM
Blu-ray players were never supposed to support BDMV authored content using ordinary data type BD-R or BD-RE media. An exemption was made for a number of months so that available blank discs could be used for testing and other promotional activities; this exemption expired recently...

...The players were not permitted to play movie content from the current blank media to begin with. There was an exception made for a short period of time to help facilitate testing and demonstrations. This issues has been given consideration since before the launch of the format. The fundamental issue is easy to understand. The studios cannot accept the use of blank media for making clones of copyrighted discs. The computer industry wants to empower consumers to fully utilize the format and that is fine, so long as measures are taken to protect copyright...

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...&#post11237686
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...&#post11240083
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=886153
http://forums.support.roxio.com/inde...howtopic=25294
http://forums.support.roxio.com/inde...howtopic=23713
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I was looking for information on this because as it turns out, the only player that can play the discs I've authored in Adobe Encore CS3 is my Sony BDP-S301. The majority of the players in various stores (Sears, Best Buy, the now-defunct Circuit City) do not read my discs. Since my player is an early generation, it may be one of the exempt players that have BD-R/RE playback, a loophole which was supposedly closed in later generations of players.

Anyway, I see this as a very serious problem for event videographers and indie filmmakers who don't have the clout or the funding to invest in AACS encryption licensing and the mass production required.

I have clients who are asking about Blu-ray versions of videos I shoot for them, and I really don't know what to tell them. I don't want to be sued because they don't understand that the reason their disc that I mastered for hundreds of dollars extra won't play is because the BDA designed the rules that way and they think that I am selling them a defective disc. I can see a real nightmare on the horizon as more of us are moving into that situation with the flow of the industry.

I really don't want to have to test every player on the market and then stock up on the ones that work and sell them, along with the BD-R disc, to clients. I don't want to be in the hardware business just to sell Blu-ray authoring.

There needs to be more awareness of the problem and more pressure on the industry to stop locking out smaller producers. It seems to me that Sony et al are practicing 'plausible deniability' with regard to this issue. Why aren't major associations like WEVA up in arms about this? There is no [technical] reason why BD-R shouldn't be at least as reliable/compatible with players on the market as DVD-R is. Especially since the first BD player had come on the heels of the BD-R standard being finalized. It seems like the compatibility problems we experience are deliberate.
 
I will test early next week with my Panny BD-30 that's only 6 months old. I've been playing footage from my HMC150 in the SDHC slot without any problems, but have never gotten around to playing a burnt Blu-Ray.

That being said, I fail to see the logic of making it so that you can't played burned BD-R's in your BD player. I mean, Sony sells a lot of the burners, you need something to play the disks back on. I get the anti-piracy part, but selling burners that create disks that you won't allow to play on your players seems like a class action lawsuit waiting to happen. One would think you could install firmware in the burner that prevents the ripping of the original copy-protected disk rather than a player that refuses all burned disks outright.
 
I think that if we try to see it from the movie producer's perspective, it all makes sense:

•The studios want to prevent consumers from burning pirated movies
•The studios would not want competition from indie movie producers on BD
•The loss in sales because 2% of the buyers are videographers who don't appreciate the lockout is insignificant ("you buy Blu-ray to watch movies, don't you?")
•BD-ROM is for backing up data, not movies, hence the burners


That said, I think your idea of a firmware in the burner that prevents ripping movies may be an effective obstacle to piracy, but there are two problems with that:

•Firmware can be hacked
•Fair Use comes into question

The way I see it right now, with blank media costing as much or more than a commercially mastered BD movie, I don't see why anyone in their right mind would make a copy of a BD movie--it's cheaper and much easier just to buy another copy. Just this week, I saw Costco selling Blu-ray movie twin packs for $19.99. My last blank inkjet printable BD-R cost me $19 for ONE disc. And then you need to figure the cost of Blu-ray packaging, ink for printing, the time involved with duping not only the disc but all the graphics.. it just isn't cost-effective to pirate Blu-ray. We content producers are already burdened with the high cost of blank media, now they have to burden us with making high priced coasters that don't play on the majority of Blu-ray players that clients already have.

My last three surveys at various big box stores were abysmal--almost none of the available players would recognize my test discs, neither BD-R nor BD-RE. Yes, my ancient Sony BDP-S301 plays them happily. This is not a good sign. Compatibility should be improving, not deteriorating.
 
It's cost effective if you buy bulk cheap media and do your pirating in China, but how many of those disks make it over here? You're right, I can get a $15 BD-R disk on Newegg. I can go down to Fry's and buy a BD for $20 (though, newer popular releases tend to be a little more). Factor in the hassle, and just pirating to distriubute to your friends isn't really cost effective

I searched the web, and it seems that it's only supposed to affect BD-R's burned with the \BDMV file structure (disks with menus), and not the \BDAV (disks without menus, like consumer cameras that record to BD) structure. My BD-30 will play my HMC footage straight from the SDHC card, which is recorded in the same \BDMV structure, so it will be interesting to see if it will play back BD-R's. I'll try Monday when I have time to go get a few blank disks.
 
BDAV obliterates the whole value of having programming on random access disc formats, so you may as well release on tape. Who would spend ten minutes fast forwarding to a particular scene of interest?
 
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